South Africa election: ANC faces tough test

Cape Town, May 8 : Anger over corruption, the faltering economy and land reform are key issues as South Africans vote in the sixth democratic national election since apartheid ended 25 years ago.

Young people queuing to vote have been speaking of their difficulties in finding jobs, with unemployment at 27pc. The African National Congress (ANC), which led the fight against apartheid, has governed the country since 1994. But its support has eroded as large inequalities have remained, said a BBC News report on Wednesday.

The centrist Democratic Alliance (DA) and radical Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) are providing the main challenges. "I'm a member of the ANC but I didn't vote for them this time," a construction worker told. "They need to catch a wake-up. The way they run the state, mishandling state funds, they've lost their morals."

Esau Zwane, 90, waiting to vote in Soweto, Johannesburg, lived through apartheid. He was celebrating "that our country is now ruled by black people," he told the BBC. A young voter said that her future employment prospects were on her mind. "I don'tconfident about getting the job I want," she said.

There are concerns about voter apathy. Despite more than 26 million people registering to vote, the highest number in South Africa's history, local surveys suggest that six million people under the age of 30 are not on the electoral roll. Apartheid, in place from 1948 to 1994, legalised racial discrimination privileging white people, and land ownership has remained a contentious issue.

The white minority still owns disproportionately more land than the black majority. The EFF has led the charge in trying to change this.The BBC's Andrew Harding in Johannesburg says the party's stance has forced the ANC to consider drastic measures to transfer more land, more quickly, into black hands, which has resulted in a pledge to conduct land expropriation without compensation.

The main opposition party, the DA, says it does not believe land reform needs to be "carried out in a way that takes from one to give to another", and instead promises to prioritise land reform in the budget and to release unused government land. Other election issues include discontent over poor basic services such as water, housing and electricity and anger over violent crime.

Opinion polls suggest that the ANC will get just over 50pc of the vote with the DA forecast to get about 20%, reports AFP news agency.If the poll proves to be true then this would mean a fall in the ANC's vote share. It won 62pc of the vote in 2014. As well as the continued inequalities, it is thought that the failure to tackle corruption has damaged the ANC.

President Cyril Ramaphosa came to power last year pledging to get to grips with the issue but some voters still associate the party with the corruption which thrived under his predecessor, Jacob Zuma.He faces trial on numerous charges of corruption but has denied any wrongdoing. UNI